ISLAMABAD: The Coalition for Tobacco Control Pakistan (CTC-Pak) on Sunday urged for implementation of 85 per cent pictorial health warning on cigarette packs.
CTC-Pakistan National Coordinator Khurram Hashmi, talking to APP, said that Pakistan had ratified the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) and became a party in 2004.
The government took a major step to protect the youth of Pakistan by enhancing the warning size from 40 per cent to 85 per cent, he added.
He urged for the fulfilment of two years old commitment to implement 85 per cent enhanced Pictorial Health Warning (PHW) on cigarette packs which was announced in January 2015.
Hashmi said that tobacco industry always targets new smoker which is youth and productive force of the nation.
“There is a grave need to inform our coming generation how the industry is playing with their lives.”
He said that around the world, proven measures to reduce tobacco use have greatly reduced the health and economic costs associated with tobacco.
These measures included increased tobacco taxes, large pictorial warning labels on tobacco products, restrictions on tobacco advertising and bans on smoking in indoor public places, he added.
He said that these measures are called for by the world’s first public health treaty, the FCTC, which obligates its 180 parties to implement these proven policies to reduce tobacco use.
He said that tobacco use is the single most preventable cause of death globally.
Tobacco was currently responsible for 10 per cent of adult deaths worldwide and the global tobacco epidemic kills nearly 6 million people each year of which more than 600,000 are non-smokers dying from breathing second-hand smoke, he added.
He said that tobacco use disproportionately harms some of the world’s most vulnerable populations.
More than 80 per cent of the world’s smokers reside in low and middle-income countries, where the harms of tobacco use are further exacerbated by a lack of access to health care.
Tobacco use also creates an economic burden, costing countries a staggering $1 trillion a year in healthcare costs and lost productivity, he concluded.